Glenwood Springs

This weekend, I went to Glenwood Springs, Colorado with my girl and the boy. We caught up with her family, aunts, uncles, and grandmother, a fellow German. The area is beautiful, and the time was well spent. Here's to many more adventures.

Revising the Status Quo

In recent weeks, I'm going through a tremendous period of self-discovery and exploration. While not necessarily on purpose, it's been re-organizing the perspective I've had, both for myself and for others.

I moved away from Ketchikan, Alaska, into what I was (and still am, although differently) perceiving as a crisis of sorts. The details of said crisis need not be publicly discussed, but the effects it's had on me, I don't mind sharing. I panicked for a number of reasons, got on the first plane I could, left the BW3 there, and just came back to Colorado.

I got off the plane in Denver, and I found myself stepping into a world nearly as strange to me as the world I met when I first landed in Ketchikan. Compared to my last few months, Colorado brought with it epic expanses of sky, miles of mountains and sunsets behind them that could make one all but weep out of joy. The city of Denver offers a plethora of food and culture, nice and friendly people, albeit many, many of them. The temperature is between 30 and 40 degrees hotter here during the day, and that has left me too sweaty, too often.

The feelings, though, were more complex than I've felt in a long time. They shook me to my core. I've felt so lost for so long, drifting from place to place in my mind, not really being present for just over four years. I've felt like a shell. Hollow. Empty. Comfortable in the fact that for me, someday, this will end as easily as it started. (Apply that last statement how you will; it has many layers.) But when I left Ketchikan, I felt genuine sadness, anxiety, anticipation, and excitement. While these emotions seemed hidden in a cloud, as though I were feeling them after staying awake for two or three days in a row, they were still there, and I was grateful.

I've found, however, that expectations can be as damning as they can be productive. I had expected to come home and see everyone and everything in a certain light, a certain way, to do my certain part, and to be treated in a certain fashion. From the moment I stepped off the airplane, all of that got turned upside down. Nothing was as it seemed.

Now I'm sitting here. It's been two weeks. My ideas, my goals, my "realities" as I knew them, as I built them, are inverted, and the moral compass that has been roughly guiding me has been spinning out of control, not showing me direction in the fog that shrouds the life I will experience from here.

I suppose the best thing to do at this point would be to take one careful step at a time, taking care not to step on anything or off of anything that could devastate my reality any more than it has wound up changing on its own. I can meditate and journal to remind my mind to be at peace with these things, and act gently and thoughtfully, remembering my recent post about the mantra "May everything be exactly as it is." I guess I should remind myself of that when I feel so lost, remind myself that I'm only lost if I stop looking, and that until that point, I'm still seeking the answers.

It's not easy to revise your status quo.

Looks likw triple digit high in Denver... fml

Looks like the BW adventures will be kicking up soon!

Ah, the deliciousness of a Pasquini's calzone...

May Everything Be Exactly As It Is

I'm continually surprised by how quickly in life things change. Maybe it's not the things in life that actually change, but it's how quickly my perceptions change. At any rate, it always catches me off guard when something I thought was reality not but a couple of weeks ago is drastically turned around in moments.

I started writing this yesterday, but I wasn't able to focus on it. Maybe it's just the dry Colorado weather, the altitude, the heat... who knows. Salida, Denver, and Ketchikan are all very different places. I find myself getting a low-level dosage of culture shock when I step into a new environment, and sometimes it takes me a second to catch my breath. (I'm sure the altitude doesn't exactly help.)

Steering this quick, disjointed blog in a serious direction for a second, I must note that I've found myself in a few situations simultaneously where I'm struggling to find the answers to the question of what the right course of action is. This being said, I remembered the mantra "May everything be exactly as it is." There are things in all of our lives that we cannot control. Friends and loved ones pass away. Jobs are lost. Vehicles are crashed. Babies are born. Lotteries are won. It's so easy to hope for a random, uncontrollable good thing to happen, but we shudder when a random and uncontrollable bad thing happens. We find ourselves seemingly dropped into a life where things seem to be spiraling out of control, and for whatever reason, we just can't get any bearings. Then we become angry that we were treated unfairly or sad because we feel helpless. But the mantra implies that everything is, simply, what it is. I know that saying is cliche, almost annoying at times, but I am pushing the deeper meaning. You lose your job. Maybe you're supposed to find a better opportunity. Maybe you're supposed to learn how to tighten your belt and empty your refrigerator. Maybe you're needing to sell your big house and get into a smaller one? And then, down the line, you're happier in a new line of work, you're in better shape, and you have a lower rent or mortgage payment. It sounds suddenly like losing your job was the best thing that happened to you, yes?

We have things we care about, but more importantly, we have loved ones, family, with or without bonds of genetics, that we must care for, must fight to ensure their happiness. We can't do it if we aren't happy ourselves, and we certainly can't do it if we're resenting them for making us work hard for them. What we can do is work hard, be the best we can be, the happiest we can be, and when we have the time, to share that happiness, that joy with them. There is joy to be found in every nook and cranny, from the bottom of the nastiest dumpster to the middle of every seedy, corrupt organization.

While the struggle in searching for this joy feels to most of us as it is never-ending, the search itself can be a positive, life-changing thing. Keeping your eyes on the prize, as it were, proves to ourselves that we know that the suffering and struggle along the way is sharpening our souls and lighting a fire under the motivation we need to keep going.

I'm going to assume you all know a little about poker as I write my closing remarks. I would hope that anyone reading this would take a second to look at the cards they've been dealt. Really look at them. Look at your job, your family, your wife or husband, your children, your parents, your grandparents, your friends, your car, your dog, your cat, your neighbors -I can go on and on, but the point is that, no matter what cards you're holding, you can play your hand. And while you may not be holding a royal flush, I can guarantee you that you're holding at least a pair, and probably a full house. Don't fold. Play the hand, and look forward to the next round of cards you'll be dealt. Assume you're playing with good friends. Someone at your table will be a winner every time, guaranteed, and be happy for them when they do, because when it's your turn, they will share that sentiment.

May everything be exactly as it is.

The Bittersweet reunion with SeaTac

I flew in from Ketchikan this morning to a sunny/cloudy Seattle. While my reasons for making this journey back home are for me alone, leaving Ketchikan this morning was bittersweet. It was foggy and rainy, but as soon as I broke through the clouds, it was sunny and bright.

I'll keep you posted.